


In which history is written by the victors and secrets crawl from the shadows

by Skull_Bearer



Series: Sex, Love and Robotics [5]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (sorta) - Freeform, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Drug Abuse, F/M, Fury is an idiot, Howard Stark - Freeform, IM2, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jarvis is GLaDOS, Omegaverse, Palladium Poisoning, Panic Attacks, Pepper is Beta, Phil is awesome, Sexual Harassment, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony is Omega, Tony is a fuckup, Tony is not a happy bunny, Transhumanism, abuse recovery, discussion of trauma, they have issues, triggering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:51:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1488766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skull_Bearer/pseuds/Skull_Bearer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is in control. Tony is Fine. Tony and Pepper are fine. Howard never existed. Tony is a liar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In which history is written by the victors and secrets crawl from the shadows

**Author's Note:**

> This covers the events of IM2 but goes is a slightly different direction with Jarvis and the bots. I cannot believe they would have let Tony die like that.

"Master Stark!"  
  
Tony grits his teeth. He's on edge. He's in a room full of hostile Alphas and cold Betas and even the air-conditioning's not enough to keep him from a headache. His feet itch to get out.  
  
"Master Stark"  
  
"Actually," Tony swings around to face him, "I mean, I get you're not using Mister; I'm not bonded and we all know how useless Omegas are without big Alphas to hold our hands," That gets a small laugh, not as much as Tony was hoping, but it's a start. "But I also hold about eight PHDs- right Pepper? Eight?"  
  
"Nine."  
  
"Nine PHDs then, so the proper term would be Professor Stark, wouldn't you think?" He looks at Stern, who looks like he's swallowed a lemon, and the room rings with laughter.  
  
"And how many did you have to fuck for that, Stark?"  
  
Wow, that got ugly, quickly. "Oh, about as many you did." He's too far away to scent, but Stern's got that ice-cold rigidness that suggests Beta. His face spasms. There's a shout for order. Tony smirks at him over his sunglasses, then glances at Pepper; she looks like thunder, and is scribbling furiously.  
  
"Regardless of Master-"  
  
"Professor."  
  
" _Professor_ Stark's proclivities, this hearing insists we remain at the matter at hand."  
  
"It is the contention of the US armed forces that Professor Stark possesses a specialised weapon-"  
  
"It depends on how you define the word weapon-"  
  
"-which due to his nature he is not qualified to operate-"  
  
"-I designed and made it you asinine-  
  
"-and that his continued use of the weapon makes it a domestic threat to the United State and its allies-"  
  
"- I didn't know we were counting terrorist insurgents among our allies now-"  
  
"Order!"  
  
Tony's hands clench into fists and he sits on them to hide how badly he wants to- he doesn't want to know; fight, run, start screaming the words he's only just keeping under control.   
  
"Professor Stark." The man's expression could peel paint. "Carry on and it will be considered contempt. Do you or do you not manage the Iron Man suit?"  
  
"I made it; I own it."  
  
" _Professor_ Stark is an unbonded Omega with a history of irresponsible behaviour." Stern is apparently pretending Tony doesn't exist now. "The Iron Man suit is possibly the most destructive weapon of our age, what would happen if Stark would, say, go into Heat in the middle of a warzone? I dare say those insurgents would be delighted."  
  
Tony feels his knuckles crack and a red haze start to creep behind his eyes. Stern smiles at him, easy, patronising. Tony wanted to wipe that fucking smile off his face and mop the floor with it.  
  
"The priority should be to get the suit out of the hands of those who are incapable of using it correctly, and into the hands of the US government."  
  
"Well, you can forget it." He should have come in the suit, it would be worth it to watch that fat bastard try and say this shit to him then. "I am Iron Man. The suit and I are one, to turn over the Iron Man suit would be turning over myself." Which- shit, he shouldn't have said that. The entire room sniggers.  
  
Tony’s still not used to thinking like an Omega. "And I was under the impression that forced Bonding was technically illegal, but hey, you're removing my right to my own property, what's a bit more stomping on the constitution. It's not as though this is a congressional hearing." There's scattered laughter. Good, he managed to salvage that.  
  
"I'm no expert-"  
  
"In forced Bonding? Come on, look at you, it's either than or prostitution." That gets a laugh.  
  
"- on weapons. But we do have someone here who is an expert on weapons. I would now like to call Justin Hammer, our current primary weapons contractor-"  
  
"Just as well we're in a period of unprecedented peace." It's the first time he's seen Hammer since Afghanistan. His eyes rake over Tony and his skin crawls as it hasn't since Stane.  
  
Hammer's no Stane though. He's a sleazy backstabbing bastard with about three sexual assaults he's had covered up, but he's also a textbook example of the kind of Alpha with a knot where their brain should be.   
  
"I have observed Mr Hammer entering the chamber and am wondering when an actual expert will be in attendance."  
  
Hammer smiles, and Tony has gotten so fucking sick of that smile he just wants to make Hammer eat his goddamn briefcase. That slick 'don't worry your pretty little Omega head about anything, the big boys are here to take care of it' smile.  
  
"I might not be an expert." Hammer gets up and strolls over to the podium, a slow, measured stalk that puts Tony's back up. He reeks of arrogance and ease. "But you know who was the expert?"  
  
Tony feels his bones lock, fight or flight- no- don't-  
  
"Stark Industries." Tony lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He feels pathetic. Stane was the only one who remembered Howard Stark ever existed. Tony's not heard his name for six months. "Your company, Anthony. The same company which supplied the US armed forced for so long. It's notable that Stark Industries made its change from weapons manufacturing change during two important events. One, the decision of its CEO to stop taking the Omega hormone suppressive Destrogestrel Progestin, and the untimely death of its most prominent Alpha board member, Obadiah Stane. Leaving little Tony all in charge."   
  
Hammer shrugs a sort of 'what can you do, you know Omegas'.  
  
"Now, I'm not saying you aren't a genius, Tony. You are. Your suit proves that. But you created a sword and insist it's a shield. You took a company that makes weapons and tried to turn it to clean energy. I'm sure you've got all the little Omega rights groups behind you burning collars and -whatever they do nowadays. I wish I could join them."   
  
Scattered laughter.   
  
"Hey, some of them are very cute! But this ain't Canada. We live in a world of grave threats and we can't rely on one Omega's utopian dream for our future. Thank you. God bless America."  
  
"The committee would like to invite Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes to the chamber."  
  
"Rhodey?" No. No, fuck no. Not Rhodey, he wouldn't - _he's an Alpha_ \- yes but no, this was Rhodey. He knew Rhodey - _he'd thought he knew Stane_ \- No. He wouldn't believe this.   
  
"Hey buddy, didn't expect to see you here." Despite the tension, being close to Rhodey feels stupidly good after sitting in a room with two dozen pissed-off Alphas. Tony fights off the urge to drop his head on Rhodey's shoulder and take a weight off for a moment, let him handle this mess, just for a few seconds-  
  
"Look, it's me, I'm here, deal with it." Tony sits back down, feeling cold.  
  
He can feel it spread as Rhodey reads. It's out of context, he reminds himself, it's cherry-picking. You could cherry-pick Origin of Species to prove evolution wasn't real, or the Bible to disprove God. It's doesn't mean anything.  
  
_ Rhodey wrote this _ . About him.  
  
He didn't go to him and talk about this, didn't ask him about the piss-poor fuck-ups trials of the imitation suits. Nothing.  
  
_ What did he expect? _  
  
Rhodey looks at him when he commandeers the screens to show the results of the trial disasters- which, judging by the number of phones held up, will be viral on the internet in a few seconds- Tony meets his eyes, Rhodey is almost smiling, Tony doesn't smile back. The weight of his words still sitting in his stomach like lead weight.  
  
"Most countries, five to ten years, Hammer Industries, twenty."  
  
Tony gets up, ignores Rhodey and Hammer and Stern in favor of the crowd. "I'm your nuclear deterrent. You don't want to hide behind an Omega, fine, you can go to Saudi Arabia or Somalia where they slice up Omegas for fun, but here in America? It's working. We're safe. Is your Alpha pride so tiny that it's more important than the citizens of this country? You want my property? You can't have it, but I did you a big favor."  
  
He turns around, there are some frowns, but mostly smiles, it helps the cold knot of Rhodey's words. He’s managed to turn this around. "I have successfully privatised world peace."  
  
They clap; some of them even stand up, although they sit down embarrassed a few moments later.  
  
"What more do you want? You heard these assclowns, they'd rather have America under fire than let me defend it."  
  
"Fuck you Master Stark. Fuck you."  
  
"Nope, I'll leave you to your left hand, senator." A roar of laughter.  
  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
“I’m back.” Tony sings out. There’s a chorus of clicks and whirrs and beeps as the boys scurry to tidy the mess in the workshop. “What have you been up to?” The worktops are covered in scraps of wire and metal; it looks as though Butterfingers and You have played tug-of-war with a bit of his old Mark II. “You three are a disaster.” Dummy beeps indignantly. “Ah-ah, you’re the oldest, you should have stopped them.”  
  
“You seem to be in a very good mood, sir.”  
  
"You know it went well." Tony jumps on the couch, lying across cushions that still smell faintly of Heat. The screen flickers on to show the Expo. "Go on, edited highlights; show me how good I looked."  
  
He looks good. You'd have to be deaf and blind to miss how utterly awesome he is. But most of the USA seems to be, because under the roar of AC/DC he can still make out the shrieks of 'take it off', the chorus of whistles that would be flattering a year ago and now just old, and that woman there shouting next to the microphone "show us some ass, fucking _whore_ ".  
  
Tony mutes the TV, he knows his speech by heart and he doesn't need to hear this shit. The euphoria's faded and his chest is starting to ache. Tony rubs at it, trying to ease the pain (it never goes away now, he's going to have to start on painkillers-) The Tony Stark on the screen smiles, holds up his hands. He looks invincible. He talks, gestures, motions to the screen, which starts to show highlights of the upcoming events.  
  
At least no one had thrown anything this time. Or barged on stage. That...hadn't been fun. No one had tried again since that Alpha was dragged off stage three months ago with a broken nose after Tony had headbutted her with his helmet on.  
  
After _that_ fiasco, Tony'd taken to mostly ignoring the news. He’d heard enough, the days after Stane's funeral. When he revealed he was Iron Man and no, he wasn't going to stop, and no, he wasn't going to step down, and yes, he could fucking do this, thank you.  
  
The only time he really checked the news was during the run up to the Stark Expo - And that there makes him smile - because in the three months since he announced it, there have been three- read it, three- articles in the entire global news network that even mentioned Howard Stark, and of those, one was a regional rag with a circulation of about twelve, the other Tony paid three thousand to omit just those few sentences, and the last one was a sub-sub-sub edition of the New York Post that only came out on alternate Mondays if there’s a full moon and the stars are in alignment. It’s been tied up in development hell for three weeks and doesn’t look as though it’s coming out any time soon.  
  
The footage moves to the senate hearing. That, Tony is watching with the sound on. At least it's a distraction from the taste of the smoothie Dummy brings over.  
  
"We are up to eight ounces a day to counteract the symptoms, sir."  
  
The ache fades a bit- not enough. "Check palladium levels."  
  
"Blood toxicity, twenty four percent."  
  
That- that can't be right. It was only eighteen a few days ago-  
  
"It appears that continued use of the Iron Man suit is accelerating your condition."  
  
Jarvis has gotten good at sounding calm, but there's a note of something broken in his words that hurts more than the palladium. Twenty-four percent. Tony has been using the arc reactor and the Iron Man suit for just over six months. At best estimates; assuming it doesn't accelerate any more, that gives Tony just over two years.  
  
Assuming it works like that. Assuming after fifty percent he won't have to be mainlining painkillers to block out the pain. At seventy unable to think properly. He'll probably be looking at major organ failure at about ninety.  
  
So more like a year and a half. And of that only six months of that actually worth living.  
  
"Another core has been depleted." Jarvis knows these numbers; Jarvis can run them faster than Tony can. He sounds helpless. "I have run simulations on every known element, and none can serve as a viable replacement for the palladium core." Tony changes the core, feels his body grow cold and his heartbeat ratchet up.   
  
The reactor slides back in and there's a moment of pure, wonderful relief. Even the pain can't touch him here. It reminds Tony of the few times he'd tried heroin.  
  
Like heroin, it never lasts as long as the first time. The wave passes, and Tony is back in his aching, sick body.  
  
"You are running out of both time and options."  
  
Six months. Six months; because Tony is not going to die insane with pain in a hospital bed. When it becomes too much, he'll stop. Hell, it's pretty easy when you're the only human being to come with an off switch-  
  
"Ms Potts is approaching. I recommend that you inform her-"  
  
"Mute."  
  


* * *

  
  
It's meant to be a good moment, it's meant to be a happy moment. Truth is, Tony's been thinking about doing this for months, since he’d started being Iron Man and found he'd somehow become an even worse CEO than he'd been before. He'd have to give up one of them, and there was never any question which one.  
  
This should be a good moment.  
  
It should be happening on the balcony, or overlooking the sea. It should be coming at a better time than this. Tony should be thinking about what a good CEO he'll have, and that he'll be able to have morning lie-ins now, and imagining the faces of the board when Pepper comes in and kicks them until they're squealing.  
  
He's thinking that the company will be in good hands, and that Pepper will make sure no one hurts Jarvis and his boys, and keep the suits out of the hands of the military.  
  
He's thinking as though he's already dead.  
  
Pepper should be happy. She should be smiling. She should be laughing and then Tony will get her champagne and they'll drink and laugh and maybe after a few Pepper will relax enough they could do something fun together-  
  
Pepper looks as though she might be sick. She closes her eyes and looks away, and for a moment- a horrible, stomach-churning moment- Tony thinks she might actually _cry_. And if she cries Tony is going to die _right now_ because he doesn't want to live in a world where he made Pepper Potts cry.  
  
Then it's gone, and Pepper wears Professional Pepper like a mask, but Tony can see the pain in her eyes. "No."  
  
He blinks, "No?" It comes out weak.  
  
Pepper takes in a breath. "I'm not going to let you do this, Tony."  
  
"Do- I want to make you CEO-"  
  
"You don't. Was it the hearing? Tony, those bastards were going to throw everything they had at you, you knew that-"  
  
"I mean, can you think of anyone more qualified? I can't-"  
  
"It's your company! I'm not going to let you give it away because some packless wonders who couldn't get a Beta to mate with them think you can't run it-"  
  
"It's not them, it's you, I want you to have it-"  
  
"Do you think I want it? To have it splashed across all the papers that Tony Stark can't take it and let his secretary take over instead-"  
  
"Like they'd ever say anything nice about me, at least they're saying something nice about you-"  
  
"You scared them at the hearing, Tony, they don't want you to get away with behaving like you do, and now you're going to roll over and let them win-"  
  
"How is this letting them win? We all win. I'm Iron Man full-time, you're CEO; we recover a bit more of our shares-"  
  
"Fuck the shares!"  
  
Tony shuts up. He can count the number of times he's heard Pepper swear on the fingers of one hand and have most of them left over. Her eyes are too bright; she turns away and bites her lip. "I can't believe you're doing this."  
  
Tony tries to think of something to say. There's nothing but _I'm dying_ and Tony's not saying that.  
  
"Tony, this is the way it's going to be. All the time you spent hiding, I was fighting the same kinds of bastards who don't think an Omega can be CEO. And you know what I learned?"  
  
Tony knows better than to say anything.  
  
"That if you start giving ground, they'll just take and take. You think if you give up being CEO, they won't come for your suits? They'll come." Pepper nods, her jaw clenched. "They'll come harder than before. Right now? You're strong, we're strong. But if you give any ground, any at all, never mind something as huge as this, they'll come after you. And after the hearing, they won't stop until they've stripped you of every right you have."  
  
"It’s not- that's not why-" Tony can't seem to set up a sentence. "Look, it's- if anything happens to me. With the suit. After Stane- there are no guarantees-"  
  
"Stane's dead. And didn't you say any other suit would take five years minimum to produce?"  
  
Tony looks away, "Pep-"  
  
"No, Tony." Her eyes soften, she sighs. "I'm flattered you'd think of me, really, I am. But I can't, Tony. We can't. I've been playing this game a long time. People don't want Betas getting too above themselves, and I know how it works."  
  
"Will you at least, legally, allow me to make you my successor? Just in case? I don't want the board selling out to Hammer if something happens to me."  
  
"Nothing's going to happen to you."  
  
"You don't-"  
  
"Tony." Pepper steps closer, puts a hand on his shoulder. It's warm and solid, and shockingly strong for being so slim. "Nothing’s going to happen to you."  
  
"But-"  
  
"I promise." She's so close Tony can smell her, and for a moment all he wants to do is fall to the ground, hang on to her and tell her everything. Just unload and trust her to hold him up because he's so tired right now.  
  
Just a moment.  
  
It doesn't last long.  
  
Then she's gone, and Tony is standing alone in the workshop. There's a crack as Dummy drops the bottle of champagne Tony had prepared for the occasion, and a crunch as he rolls over the shards to get the dustpan.  
  
"That was, by far, the most morally reprehensible thing you have ever done, sir."  
  
"Didn't I mute you?" Tony snarls. He needs a drink, or twenty.

 

* * *

  
  
Tony sleeps.  
  
He sleeps the entire plane ride to Monaco, and wakes up aching and still exhausted when they arrive. He drinks what feels like a pint of Jarvis' vile concoction, and it still doesn't go away. He downs three aspirin and the pain fades enough that he starts to feel human again.  
  
There are five aspirin left in the packet, and now Tony is wondering if they'll be enough, if he'll have to stop to get more, how he can pass this off to Pepper-  
  
He drops his face in his hands and doesn't move, feeling the ache numb a little more as the drug's pumped through his veins. Each heartbeat feels like a countdown.  
  
Twenty seven percent.  
  
His one success is that Pepper finally agrees to arrive with him at the Hotel rather than waiting inside. She's going to be running the company soon, even if she doesn't know it, the best Tony can do is keep her in the public eye so when it happens, no one will be surprised.  
  
Except Pepper. Because she doesn't know. Because Tony hasn't told her. Because Tony is a selfish bitch who wants his last six months to be good, and having Pepper in meltdown is not part of that.  
  
Tony hates himself more than he's ever hated anyone in his life.  
  
Fuck he needs a drink.  
  
And then, the day just decides to get worse.  
  
"Tony! Is that you?"  
  
Tony doesn't answer, just downs his drink in one go. Pepper looks over his shoulder, and does the same.  
  
Tony's plans for the next six months have involved a distinct lack of Justin Hammer, but hey, why should the world listen just because he's dying?  
  
Hammer sidles in next to him, and puts an arm around his shoulders, hand squeezing his upper arm just hard enough to hurt. "Hey sweetie, how're you doing?"  
  
Tony wonders if his six months could include biting Hammer's nose off. He plasters a smile that's mostly teeth on his face, and tries to shrug Hammer's arm off. The grip just gets tighter.  
  
"I think Mr Stark would like you to let him go." Pepper's mouth is a flat line and she is holding her glass so tightly it threatens to crack.  
  
"Oh, but Tony and I are friends, aren't we Tony?" Another squeeze. Hammer smells foul; bad cologne and an Alpha reek that just crawls under Tony's skin. "And- hey! You know Christine Everhart, right?"  
  
Her smile looks like it's been stitched on without anesthetic, Tony gives her a tight grimace in return.  
  
"She’s actually doing a big spread on me for Vanity Fair-"  
  
"Well, I hope it's not too disappointing after the one we did." Tony tries to squirm out from under Hammer's grip - not happening. "It must have been good, you even wrote about it."  
  
Everhart's smile blinks out, then back at seeing Hammer lean just a bit more on Tony, pulling him in a little tighter. "Well, maybe I could get one with both of you, given as you seem to be so close."  
  
"Oh you'll have to wait for that," Pepper steps in a little more, blocking Hammer, "Tony's got quite a waiting list without bothering with _old news_."   
  
Her teeth are bared, neat and even white, and her nostrils flare. She's Alpha enough that the small space stinks of territorial aggression and Tony wants out, and if he can't get loose right now he's going to take that glass and do something to Hammer than no amount of plastic surgery will fix.  
  
"Oh, I think Tony knows the value of _good press_ , particularly after what happened in the senate, right Tony?" Hammer leans in, inches apart. He's a good few inches taller than Tony, and seems to bear down much larger still, the air around him suddenly feeling heavy.  
  
Six months ago it might have worked, but Hammer isn't a fraction of the Alpha monster Stane had been. Tony's teeth itch. "Oh I'm used to saying _all kinds_ of garbage to the press," He nods at Everhart, "In fact; it's getting to be a bit of a problem." Tony leans in, dropping his voice "the last two people who tried to fuck with me are dead, and I had to go and say nice things at their funeral. Now, I don't want you to be number three, 'cause I can't think of a single nice thing I could say about you." Tony reaches over to Hammer's hand, and pries it off with a grip like iron.  
  
Hammer is staring at him, mouth open. Tony steps away, Pepper shoulder-to-shoulder. "Nice to see you both."  
  
They walk off- not in any particular direction, just away. Tony needs to get out of here, he needs to go outside, get some air-  
  
"What was that?"  
  
"What was that?" Tony blinks at Pepper.  
  
"What you said to him, what was the other funeral?"  
  
"You heard that?" Pepper nods.  
  
Shit.  
  
"No one's - Hammer's - forget it."  
  
Pepper pauses, then, because she's wonderful and Tony totally doesn't deserve her, nods and lets it go. Tony stops and rubs his face. The air in the room is too hot, too sick with pheromones; he can't cope right now.  
  
And maybe it's the stress and pressure, because when he ducks into the bathroom to catch his breath and check his blood, it's gone up to thirty-three percent. He can almost taste the palladium in his blood, bitter sickness among the salt and metal. He wonders if he can hear Stane and Howard laughing.  
  
Tony is glad he never believed in an afterlife.  
  
One third. He went from a quarter to a third in two days.  
  
Tony doesn't have six months. Tony doesn't have six weeks. It looks as though the palladium's broken some sort of barrier and his body's resistance against it isn't enough. He can't fight against it any more. He's weakening. He's going to die.   
  
He's going to die and Pepper will be heartbroken and the bots will be alone and everyone else is going to point and laugh and boast how of course he couldn't do it, of course it ended badly. He'll be a fucking _cautionary tale_ for Omegas who think they can be more than fucktoys.  
  
He should have glassed Hammer, back there. He should have beaten him within an inch of his smug Alpha life and stood over him bloody and broken and shouted _Anyone else? Weak fucking Omega here, any of you big scary Alphas want a try?_  
  
Well.  
  
"Got any more bad ideas?"  
  


* * *

  
  
He tells Pepper he's going for a drive to clear his head. After everything he's done to her, what's one more lie? She lets him go and by the time she realises what he's doing, it's be too late.  
  
He's breaking about twenty different Formula One regulations, but what the fuck does it matter. There's only one he's aiming for anyway: Rule number four, which specifies the driver's mandatory hormone level. No Omegas, no Omegaish Betas. Because having a knot is so vital for driving a fucking car.  
  
Isn't that what it's about? Leaving a legacy? Because even if he's disqualified, he'll have shown them exactly how accurate their dark ages fucking rules really are.  
  
By the time the media (and the idiots in charge) have cottoned on to what he's doing, he's in the car and strapped in, and it's either stop the race at the last second or let it go.  
  
And said idiots must really believe in their rules, because they let Tony race.  
  
Around the five minute mark, when Tony's worked up to seventh place and working on sixth, he starts laughing. He spends most of his time in the Iron Man suit doing this only much faster and in three dimensions. He's got one of the best cars on the planet. He hopes the organizers' reactions are being recorded. He hopes he can keep going until Pepper smoothes things out so that they'll let him get tires replaced. He hopes they are a lot of cameras around when he wins this race.  
  
He's relaxed into it, this easy flow of act and react, that he doesn't see the guy in the road before he almost runs him over.  
  
And the world turns upside down.

* * *

  
  
Happy slams into the psychopath at full speed. Pepper headbutts the seat in front of her and her ears ring. The suitcase slips in her hands. She tightens her grip and clenches her teeth. "Again!" Happy backs up and revs in again. The crunch is hideous.  
  
Tony jumps down from the fence and scrambles to the car. "Get back!" Pepper shouts, and for once he does as she says. Pepper feels a hot burn of satisfaction. Tony's safe. He's hers, and he's safe. Her Omega, safe. Pepper feels her throat vibrate in a growl, echoed by Happy. Her voice is weak and thin in comparison to Happy's; she doesn't have the depth of throat for real Alpha warning.  
  
The man spits blood at the windscreen and _hisses_ , a hideous, inhuman sound. His whips lash out and carve off the right side of the car. Happy snarls and backs the car to ram him again, and sets off the airbags. Pepper throws herself out of the car. One of the whips catches the side of her face and there's a flash of pain; then she hits the ground and rolls. One of her shoes gets caught under her and the heel snaps. Pepper snarls, kicks off her shoes and gets to her feet, barefoot.   
  
"Give me the case!" Tony yells, dancing just out of range.  
  
The man roars, so deep Pepper can feel it in her chest, and hits the car with both whips, almost splitting it in half down the front. He bears metal-lined teeth and stalks towards Tony again.  
  
Pepper doesn't feel the rough road under her feet, doesn't feel the pain of the gash as she runs to the back of the car. She throws the suitcase armor at Tony and grabs a tire iron.  
  
"Put it on, I'll hold him off!"  
  
"Pepper!" Tony struggles with the armor.  
  
Pepper roars, a thin, shrill noise, and closes with the madman, standing between him and Tony. His eyes slide off her, noting and forgetting her in the same moment. Pepper bares her teeth. Every Alpha who’d overlooked her she’d left in the dust. The tire iron is slippery with motor oil and spins in her hands as she puts every ounce of half-Alpha strength she has into it.  
  
The blow glances off the man's nose and his head snaps back, blood exploding everywhere. Pepper feels some of it splash on her face and roars again, bringing the iron down across his throat.  
  
The man jerks back just before the blow lands, and it catches on the knotwork of wires across his chest. There's a sudden, blinding flash and a cold, exploding pain burning up her arm to her shoulder. Pepper drops the tire iron with a cry and grabs her screaming arm, staggering backwards.  
  
Every joint aches, every muscle is screaming. Her arm is useless. The man roars at her, low and foul, mocking, and turns his back on her. Pepper hisses, tears in her eyes of pain and sheer rage at being helpless, unable to do the most basic Alpha task of protecting her Omega. He glances back, one moment, and sneers.  
  
One moment.  
  
Pepper's going to _remember_ that look on his face, the sneer fading to a look of shock when Tony blasts him in the back.  
  


* * *

  
  
The only thing Tony can say that was good about the entire fiasco, is that his point still stands: every Alpha (with the possible exception of Happy) was utterly useless. It took an Omega and a Beta to stop the mess.  
  
Mostly, though, Tony is still wondering who this guy is. The guy who built a suit skeleton that actually worked. The guy who built an arc reactor. The guy who decided that instead of doing the sensible thing and say; selling the tech on, or maybe even blackmailing Tony, chose to kill him. A guy Tony's spent the last hour trying to recall if he's ever seen in his life.  
  
He's sitting opposite the guy now, and nope, still no bells. His nose is swollen and bloody from Pepper's tire iron, but Tony doesn't smile, studying the man.  
  
The man looks at him for the first time. He's Alpha, but he's not trying to make himself big or intimidating. He's completely at ease. He reminds Tony, chillingly, of Raza. "You come from a family of thieves, and butchers, and now, like all guilty men you try to rewrite your own history. And you forget all the lives the Stark family has destroyed."  
  
Oh fuck. Tony would have thought the whole stopping creating weapons, privatizing world peace thing would be a pretty big _I'm sorry_. But he supposes some people aren't as generous as Yinsen.  
  
"Speaking of thieves, where did you get this design?"  
  
"My father, Anton Vanko."  
  
"Never heard of him." And probably never will. Tony's still got people working through Stane’s old invoices, finding out where those weapons went.  
  
"My father is the reason you're alive." He glances at Tony's chest.  
  
Tony stops."You’re talking about the arc reactor."   
  
Vanko just smiles.  
  
"This isn't about weapons at all, is it?" Tony’s mouth has gone numb, and he gets up, because there is no way he can have this conversation sitting down. "This isn't even about _me_."  
  
Tony takes a deep breath, his mouth tastes of burning. “Stop me if I’m getting this wrong.” He manages to keep his voice steady. “Your father helped _my father_ build the first reactor didn't he?" His hands are shaking. He can hear his heart beating in his jugular. "And, because Howard Stark is a butcher and the thief, he cut him out and cheated him. Right?"  
  
Vanko’ eyes are narrowed. He nods, once.  
  
"And," Tony soldiers on, deaf to anything but the hammering inside his own head, "Because you're a good son, and loved your father, you decided to avenge him. But here's the problem." Tony lifts a hand, it's shaking harder than when he went through withdrawal. "There is no one in the world that hates Howard Stark more than I do. You want to make a group for people who hate him? Put my name at the top of the list. _I would fucking fund you_. You want to come in and tell me how he was a sick and evil man who fucked up everything he touched? I agree with everything you said."  
  
Tony leans down, his breath is coming in short pants and everything is red. "You and your dad could have come any time. You got emails in Russia right? How about paper? Just say 'Hey Tony? Your father was a psychopath who cheated me out of millions and left me and my son to starve. He's the blueprints as proof', and I'd have paid your share. Fuck, if you can build an arc reactor, I'd have fucking _employed_ you."  
  
"But you didn't." Tony takes a deep breath. "Because really? You don't even care. I saw a guy like you in Afghanistan. He killed a good, kind man for no fucking reason. You just want to burn down the world because you can. If you'd given a flying fuck about your dad you'd both be living in Beverly Hills by now. Instead you're here, in a jail."  
  
Tony looks at him, Vanko doesn't move, but there's something in his eyes that's a bit uncertain- then again, he's probably never had an Omega half his size screaming in his face before. "Fuck." Tony laughs; it sounds horrible to his own ears. "Of course it wasn't me. When have any of you fuckers had anything to do with me?"  
  
Their eyes meet. Vanko doesn't blink. "I have made god bleed." He says finally, "And the world will consume you."  
  
"That's great." Tony rubs his face, suddenly exhausted and sick and miserable. "I hope that works out for you, I really do. Good luck getting a decent view."  
  
"Before you go." Tony, like an idiot, stops. "Palladium in the chest. Painful way to die." His eyes are blank and empty as Raza's.  
  
There's nothing Tony can say, his jaw moves, his teeth ache, but there are no words. Vanko smiles.  
  


* * *

  
  
The flight back to America is almost silent.  
  
Pepper's typing clumsily with her good hand, her left still in bandages. There's a bruise just below her temple, and an ugly cut on her cheek. Her red hair's a few inches shorter under her left ear.  
  
Tony tries to memorize her. Because this is the last way he'll see Pepper. He's up to sixty-two percent as of half an hour ago. He's not going to see Pepper's hair grow back, or her burns heal. He's got- Tony's trying not to count, but it's in days, not weeks.  
  
And he spent three hours of that time trying to make Pepper an apology meal.  
  
Pepper switches off Stern's gloating and looks at him, then down at the plate he gives her. "Your in-flight meal."  
  
She doesn't smile.  
  
"Look, I didn't know that was going to happen-"  
  
"I'm taking the position." Pepper is still staring at the ruined omelet. "I sent the papers through while you were cooking."  
  
"Oh." Tony blinks, feels a flutter of relief. "That's good, I mean, we should celebrate, right?" He pushes the cutlery towards her.  
  
"That stunt cost us a fifteen point stock drop." Pepper doesn't move. "Stern's putting pressure on the board. It was either take the position or watch them stage a hostile takeover."  
  
"Pepper-"  
  
Pepper's hands are clenched, trembling in her lap. "I'm going to need an assistant. I've been looking through applications for the last two hours. I'm not going to have able to use this hand for a week."  
  
"Pep-" She's still not looking at him. It hurts more than the palladium.  
  
"Were you planning this?" It comes out in a rush, and now Pepper's looking at him, pain and hurt and tears in her eyes. "Is this punishment for not letting you make me CEO? To screw things over until I don't have any choice?"  
  
"I couldn't be CEO any more, not and be Iron Man-"  
  
"This had nothing to do with Iron Man! This was you trying to prove- what were you even trying to prove-"  
  
"That Omegas could be racing drivers-"  
  
"And the best way to do that was to switch at the last minute and drive it yourself? They're blaming you for that mess. They'd have sold the company off-"  
  
"I've been doing this shit for years. If the world wants to freak out about it, fine. You're the one telling me I shouldn't change-"  
  
"I said you shouldn't back down. You had to know things would change! You can't go around like this anymore; it's not worth it-"  
  
"So I should let them tell me what I can or can't do, that's great Pep, what happened to not giving an inch-"  
  
"I nearly saw you die today." Pepper shouts. She's suddenly upright, and Tony's omelet is on the floor. "He nearly killed you, and I had to watch. Now Stern and his bastards want strip you of every right you have and _sell you off_ -"  
  
"They can't do that, not legally-"   
  
"They have all the evidence they need to prove you're too irresponsible to look after yourself. You don't have any family, and Rhodey and I don't have enough influence. They will have you _auctioned_ -"  
  
"No, I-" Tony looks away. "Look, stop acting like you're my Alpha."  
  
"Just go, Tony." Pepper slumps. "Just- go away. Please."  
  
It's the worst kind of silence. Tony gets up finally, and goes to the bedroom. He lies down on the bed and stares at the ceiling for the next two hours back to Malibu, because his chest hurts and Tony's not sure if that's just the palladium.  
  


* * *

  
  
Pepper's new assistant is waiting for them at the house. She's Omega, and unlike Tony doesn't seem ashamed to show it, all long hair and perfume. Maybe this was Pepper's last 'Fuck You' to the board. She's beautiful, with graceful hands when she hands Tony the paperwork to sign.  
  
Tony takes his time signing, she smells wonderful under the perfume. Omega-scent. She's reassuring and safe, and if it wasn't such a bad idea Tony would ask her to join him and Pepper next time he was in Heat-  
  
Which won't be for another month. Which he won't live to see.  
  
It's such a huge wrench that Tony almost blots his own signature. He wants to take hold of her and Pepper both and just hang on, he wants to let himself fall and trust them to catch him, he wants, for once, just once, not to be the strong one anymore.  
  
Fuck, he must be getting bad if he's breaking down in front of a total stranger.  
  
Tony finishes signing and hands the clipboard back to the assistant- Natalie Rushman, Tony reminds himself. He won't have time to learn her name over the weeks it took him to learn Pepper's.  
  
She smiles, and her hand brushes his. He'd wondered about finding a friendly (and discrete) Omega commune who wouldn't mind helping him through a Heat. Pepper could take a break and the memory of the Heat he had spent with Yinsen is still sweet in his memory. He never got around to doing it. He never will.  
  
Pepper seems to get on with Natalie. Good. Natalie seems a more traditional Omega type, if that's what Pepper wants, and she's got enough ambition and style to make her formidable. Maybe Pepper and her will become close.  
  
He just wants Pepper to be happy, after he's about to ruin her life.

 

* * *

  
  
Downstairs, the workshop is a bombsite. There are components and piles of wires and tubing everywhere.  
  
"Jarvis, what the hell is this?"  
  
"Apologies sir, but they were determined."  
  
"To wreck the place?" To picks up a scrap at random. "Is this hybrid nanotubing? Do I even have hybrid nanotubing?"  
  
"Evidently."  
  
"Okay. Out of there, all of you." Dummy's camera appears from under a pile of whatever-the-fuck. "Charging stations, go. Actually, tidy up this mess then go charge." Tony drops in his Ford Roadster- the only seat not consumed by trash. "I should just tell Pepper to sell all of you to MIT, though I'm not sure if I hate them that much. Maybe I’ll sell you all of you to Senator Stern to screw up his shit."  
  
Dummy rolls over to him, touches his shoulder. Tony shrugs it off. "Just go." A soft broken whine.  
  
He blows off Rhodey; it's not forever, Rhodey's not dumb and he's going to guess soon enough. But it doesn't have to be for long. He's up to seventy-three percent and everything hurts, even through the drugs. His bones hurt, his muscles ache. He's got- tomorrow, maybe the day after. After that, the pain will be too much to hide, or manage.  
  
Tony looks down at the desk, and picks up his little tray of palladium cores. "Dummy?"  
  
The bot beeps from where he’s helping to get the workshop in order. "Throw them away." He doesn't look up as Dummy picks the tray out of his hands and trundles away.  
  


* * *

  
  
Eight-nine percent estimated by tomorrow. Some things can't ever really sink in and the knowledge that he'll probably not see another sunrise is one of time.   
  
"I should cancel the party." Tony's talking more to himself than Natalie, but she turns from making a martini anyway.  
  
"Probably."   
  
"Yeah, because it's-"  
  
She's beautiful, and everything - pheromones, body language - is at once soothing and painful. He just wants more time. "Ill-timed? Inappropriate"  
  
"Right, sends the wrong message." Could he just say 'Hey Pepper, Natalie. I'll be dead in the next forty-eight hours, can we all just stay in bed until then?’  
  
Tony really wishes he were the kind of bastard who could do that. He takes a sip of his martini.  
  
Natalie sits almost on top of him to do his makeup. "Really?"  
  
She smiles, a sweet half-smile. She starts covering up the scratches left from Vanko's attack. Her fingers are gentle, it's so sweet. Can I stay here? Just not move?  
  
Then, because Tony feels as though he's breaking inside, the words just come out. "Could I ask you a question, hypothetically? If this were the last birthday party you were ever going to have, how would you celebrate it?"  
  
If the question fazes her, Tony can't see it. "I'd do whatever I wanted to do. With whoever I wanted to do it with."  
  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
He takes the suit. It’ll cut his time shorter, but at this point what are a few hours more or less? He drugs himself blind and it doesn’t hurt any more.  
  
The alcohol was probably a bad idea. Alcohol mixed with- whatever the hell he took; vicodin probably- means that everything is fading in and out. It's hazy and loud and for the first time in weeks nothing hurts and wow, there's a lot of people here.  
  
At some point, Tony is aware that most of them are only here to see what he'll do next, but then there's another drink and that depressing thought is gone. There's music and more alcohol and everything blurring in a friendly sort of way around the edges. He thinks he falls over at some point, but it's in the suit and he's numb from the neck down anyway so who cares?  
  
There's Pepper, and can't she just fucking leave? Is he not allowed one final, idiotic send-off before writing himself off? Who is Pepper to tell him what he can or can't do anyway; she's not his Alpha, even if she behaves like she is.  
  
Tony sneers; in the suit, he's taller than Pepper in her highest stilettos, and he's too drunk and high to notice whatever half-assed pheromones she can give him. "This is my goddamn party-"  
  
Pepper moves so fast he can barely see it, the next moment she's got his jaw in her hand like he's- some kind of fucking animal, and is wrenching him aside. "It stops now-"  
  
"Get off me!" Tony pulls away and rubs his jaw. It aches where Pepper was holding him. "You wanna go? Fuck off. Everyone who stays? The afterparty starts now-"  
  
_ "I'm only gonna say this once." _  
  
Tony blinks, the world slowly flows back into focus. It's the Mark III. What-  
  
_ "Get out." _  
  
That's- Rhodey? It has to be Rhodey because Jarvis can't run the suits properly and they're coded only to Tony, Rhodey and Pepper, and Pepper's over there-  
  
Rhodey's wearing his suit.  
  
And maybe it's the alcohol and the vicodin but it’s... pretty cool. To see one of his best friends in one of the suits. He never did get Rhodey to agree to play air-tag-  
  
"You don't deserve to wear one of these." Rhodey's voice is a mechanical snarl and he comes close- too close. "Shut it down."  
  
_ He's Alpha _ something in the back of Tony's mind whispers. _What did you expect?_  
  
"I told you," Rhodey steps closer, "Shut it down."   
  
Too close. Something in Tony's stomach claws and knots and his fist flies more out of instinct than anything else _get the fuck away from me_ -  
  
Rhodey drops, staggered, and Tony closes. He manages to get two more blows in before Rhodey finally decides it's fair to swing back. The punch knocks his head back and rattles his teeth and oh fuck Tony never realise how good it felt to just _hit something_.  
  
Rhodey gets more punches in, but Tony's so high on drugs and blind, screaming rage that they don't even register. The world descends into howling scarlet and all Tony can think of is to hit and hit and hit again until everything- the _entire world_ just fucking stops moving and he can stop. He can breathe.  
  
Somewhere, Tony is aware he knows the shut-down codes, could just tell Jarvis to drop Rhodey's suit. But that's not what this is about. This about him not deserving his own fucking creations. This is about him being too unsuitable, too Omega, too fucking _weak_ to own his own life.  
  
He'll show them weak. Fuck you. Fuck all of you I'll show you weak, you bastards. Knot-brained, packless, _fucking bastards-_  
  
He's screaming this, at the top of his lungs, to a room full of terrified guests, and Rhodey's on the floor, not moving and Tony is hitting him over and over until the joints in his gauntlets have come loose and there are huge dents in Rhodey's armor-  
  
The guests run. The rage is gone, blinked out in a heartbeat and now Tony just feels sick to his stomach. Everything is wrecked and he just wants to wake up and have this be a dream-  
  
Something heavy strikes the back of his head, and it’s a world-lifting wrench to force himself to turn to Rhodey in his battered, scarred armor, both of them facing down a repulsor.  
  
"Put your hand down." Rhodey doesn't sound exultant, or triumphant. He sounds as sick as Tony feels.  
  
"You think you're the one to wear that suit?" Tony tastes blood. He's bitten his tongue raw.  
  
"You don't have to do this, Tony."  
  
No, he can give up at any time. Give up, submit, be acceptable, allowed. Give up Iron Man, give up being himself and allow them to remake him in their image.   
  
"Fuck you. Fuck all of you. You wanna be the War Machine, take your shot." Go on; end it, bastard. Packless bastard. "Go on, take your fucking shot. They'll give you a fucking medal."  
  
"Put it down!"  
  
"Take your shot!"  
  
"Drop it!"  
  
They fire in the same heartbeat, and the world whites out.  
  
When Rhodey looks at him, Tony wishes he'd not woken up at all. The suit's readings are scrambled and he can barely move. He can read Rhodey though, even under the helmet.  
  
Stay. Don't go. Don't do this to me.  
  
Rhodey looks at him, then fires up the repulsors, and is lost in the dark.

 

* * *

  
  
The suit is mostly online by the time the sun comes up. The house is a wreck; most of the upper stories are gone.  
  
Oh well. Not like anyone's going to be living there after tonight.  
  
Then, because it's his birthday and he's going to die today, Tony goes to get doughnuts. That's the plan anyway. Doughnuts, then back to the mansion, down to the workshop, put Dummy and the boys to charge, Jarvis on standby, down the sleeping pills he stashed for the occasion, pull out the arc reactor, and go the fuck to sleep. Full stop, the end, game over.  
  
They don't allow him to eat the doughnuts in the diner, so Tony sits on their display instead. Fuck them. Fuck everyone. Pepper gets the company, Rhodey gets the suit, Tony gets to be the butt of every anti-Omega joke for the next ten years. Everyone goes back to nice gender-roles normal. Tony hates the entire miserable world.  
  
The drugs and alcohol are starting to wear off and the ache is coming back. He's going to have to leave soon, before he won't be able to move for the pain-  
  
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to exit the doughnut!"  
  
Oh, what the fuck now?  
  


* * *

  
  
They gave him a shot of something and for the first time in- days, since Monaco really - the world is coming back into focus. Fuck, he hadn't even realized how much baseline pain he'd been living with until it was-  
  
Gone.  
  
Tony puts a hand over the arc reactor. It's still sore, but the aching burn is gone. He feels- normal- for the first time in weeks. The palladium levels must have dropped to about ten percent. He can think again, clear and unblurred.  
  
Still, unless Fury can pull a rabbit out of that eyepatch of his, Tony's not changing plans. Assuming the same levels of increase as last time, Tony's been given another two weeks, max. Two weeks in which he now knows exactly how bad it's going to get.  
  
So, ideas, or Tony's going to quit while he's still capable of it.  
  
"That thing in your chest is based on unfinished technology."  
  
“No, it was finished, it wasn't particularly effective before I miniaturized it and put it in my-"  
  
"No. Howard said the arc reactor was a stepping-stone to something greater-" And that's when Tony's head fills with white noise and everything turns to static. He swallows and waits until Fury's mouth stops moving before he can even try and put together an answer.  
  
"Which is why he ignored it and didn't work on it for decades, and let Vanko run off with the plans." Tony clenches his hands to stop them shaking. "I know it's hard to believe, but I actually managed to get it working properly, I didn't need a big Alpha to do it first."  
  
Fury looks at him, he's almost smiling. Tony really wants to grab a slab of rubble and beat that smug face in, but he'd just get killed and while Tony is totally okay with dying (and getting more so every minute), he'd rather it be painless.   
  
"Oh, that's what you want people to believe, right?" He sits forward, "You," he pokes Tony in the chest and Tony fights down the urge to bite his finger off, "have done everything you can to wipe Howard off the map. 'Fact, to most people, he might as well not exist. Joke's on you though because what he was doing with the arc reactor, with Vanko, might just save your life."  
  
If the Howard Stark lovefest hour doesn't end right the fuck now, Tony is going to order Jarvis to blow up the house as pure service to humanity. "You know, you said I hadn't tried everything. What do you mean I haven't tried everything? What haven't I tried?"  
  
"He said you were the only one with the means and knowledge to finish what he started."  
  
"He said that?"  
  
"Are you that guy, hmmm?"  
  
"Sorry, are we still talking about Vanko here?”  
  
"Vanko is the other side of that coin. He saw the arc reactor as a way to get rich. It got him deported. When the Russians found he couldn't deliver, they deported his ass to Siberia. He spent the next twenty years in a vodka fueled rage. Not the best environment for raising a son."  
  
"Sorry, who are we talking about again? Because right now? You're losing me."  
  
"I can see you didn't like your old man, I get that, he wasn't easy to get on with."  
  
Tony feels his entire body start to shake. "He hated me." He's smiling, he's smiling and he can't stop. He's going to start screaming. "He hated my fucking guts. For not being clever enough, for fucking around, for being Omega, for-" Tony's hands fly up of their own accord. "Fuck knows, he was a fucking lunatic and his best friend tried to murder me last year. What more the fuck do you want?"  
  
Fury just looks at him as Tony tries, tries and fails to control the screaming, shaking mess he's descending into. "S'not true."  
  
"You're shitting me about Stane; your babysitter was right there-"  
  
"He didn't hate you." It's spoken slowly, like the fucking word of god and Tony can't fucking take this. Two agents come in carrying some kind of trunk. "He was leaving this legacy for you, he was adding to it, even up to weeks before he died."  
  
"So, you know him better than I did?"  
  
"As a matter of fact, I did, he was one of the founding members of SHIELD-" then everything he says after that is lost because Tony suddenly starts laughing.  
  
It's easily the most terrifying thing that's happened to Tony since Afghanistan.  
  
He's laughing, and laughing and laughing and he can't stop. He tries to close his mouth and it's just wrenched open again, he tries to hold his breath and nearly suffocates when he laughs anyway, stuffs a fist into his mouth and tastes blood as his teeth break skin. There are tears in his eyes and they could be laughter or terror and Tony can't tell because his body is falling apart around him and he _can't stop_ -  
  
Coulson slaps him.  
  
It's such a jolt that he chokes and is suddenly coughing instead, which is at least normal and such a relief Tony could just hug Agent right then and there. He swallows, wraps his arms around himself and takes a deep breath, then another. In and out.  
  
Then he gets up "Okay."  
  
Fury looks at him, still seated. "Okay?"  
  
"Yeah." Another deep breath. "All of you get the fuck off my property."  
  
"Whoa, whoa; we came here to help you out-"  
  
"Yep, yep, not listening, fuck off, all of you." And because Tony can't think, can't hear anything but the laugher, he grabs Fury's arm and hauls him to his feet. "I told you I wasn't going to be in your super secret boyband, why are you even here? It's my house-"  
  
"Okay," Fury shrugs out of Tony's grip, he steps away. "You got this covered right?"  
  
"Take this shit," Tony waves at the trunk, "and get out now."  
  
"Natasha will remain a floater at Stark industries with her cover intact, and you remember Agent Coulson-"  
  
Tony takes a deep breath. "Jarvis, send up the suit."  
  
That gets a pause.  
  
"We're trying to help you." Coulson steps up. He's got his hands down, trying to make himself look small.   
  
Tony doesn't buy it. Natali- Natasha - pulled off playing an Omega so well she fooled everyone, and Stane's kind mask was worn to the last. "I don't need your help. I need you to leave."  
  
Dummy rolls in, carrying the suitcase armor. Tony opens, it, ready to put it on.  
  
Natasha steps up, "We've disabled all communications. No contact with the outside world-"  
  
Tony closes his eyes, breathes. "Get. Out."  
  
Coulson steps back. "Okay. We're going." He's got both hands up, shoulders slumped, trying for submission. "Director, I will be outside Mr Stark's property at all times, but I don't think having us here would be productive for him."  
  
Fury shakes his head, "You know, we are trying to help you-"  
  
They're not going. Tony puts the helmet on. "I am going to count to three, and Jarvis will gas the patio."  
  
Jarvis comes in, beat-perfect. "Warming up the deadly neurotoxin, sir."  
  
A giggle escapes; Tony bites his lip to keep it in.  
  
"Okay, we're going." Fury holds his hands up, he's smiling, like this is some crazy joke, or as thought _Tony's_ the crazy joke, standing there in his dressing gown and the Iron Man helmet, staring them down.  
  
"One."  
  
"We're out; just give us time to leave." Coulson isn't smiling. Coulson looks ill. He's got Fury by the arm and is pulling him away.  
  
"Two."  
  
Natasha doesn't move at first. Expressionless, blank. Tony can't smell anything through the Iron Man mask, but he doubts he could get anything out of her anyway. The Omega guise was just that, a guise. The real Natasha has no scent. A dull neuter nothing that's more frightening than anything. Tony wonders if SHIELD chemically castrates their agents and the screaming comes back louder than ever.  
  
"Three."  
  
They leave.  
  
Tony stops, standing very still. The patio is suddenly silent except for the crashing of the waves and Dummy's soft beeps. His breathing is incredibly loud, ears ringing from the screaming, the laughter.  
  
Tony tears off the helmet and gets his head over the balcony just in time. He clings to the railing as he retches, shaking. The water is a long, long way down.  
  
He could just jump. Get out of this nightmare here and now, and fill his head with flying one last time. He's already trying to get over the railing when Dummy beeps, alarmed. Tony stops - yeah, he was about to commit suicide in front of his kid, just fucking wonderful – he turns around.  
  
"Dummy! Drop that!" The bot drops the trunk he was starting to pick up. It hits the floor and spills open. Tony jumps back because if Howard left anything for Tony, it would be an armed land mine.  
  
The trunk mysteriously fails to explode. In fact, it empties a pile of junk across the concrete. There are newspaper clippings, blueprints, some books, a pile of photographs, and-  
  
Some film reels.  
  
_ "He was leaving his legacy for you, even up to weeks before he died." _  
  
Oh god, he _filmed_ it.  
  
Tony crashes to the ground, grabs handfuls of his own hair and pulls until tears spring into his eyes and he can breathe again.  
  
Okay, okay. Calm down. If Fury and his goonies watched those films they wouldn't have been talking to him like that. He could just take the cans and tip them into the sea, burn them, destroy everything in this trunk and pretend the last hour or so didn't happen for the time it takes him to unplug the reactor. It'll be over soon, he just has to hold it together.  
  
Okay.  
  
Dummy is packing up the trunk as Tony gets up, his mouth tastes of half-digested doughnuts and rotten alcohol. "Dummy, take that trash down to the incinerator and burn it."  
  
"Sir?" Jarvis sounds uncertain. "Would it not be better to look through the items? Commander Fury thought they could help you."  
  
Tony starts heading down the stairs. Dummy picks up the trunk and follows. "Commander Fury had no fucking idea what was in that trunk. I am not going through whatever fun tortures Howard decided to leave for me because some guy who had no clue what he really was, thought it could help."  
  
"You are dying."  
  
"Yep." Tony walks into the pitch-black workshop. "Going to die. Right now. Lights."  
  
The workshop is a disaster.  
  
Half the lights don't work. As far as Tony can make out they've been cannibalized for parts. The Mark II is completely gone and the floor is mostly hidden by piles of metal parts broken down so fine they're almost powder.  
  
The worktops however, are completely clean. They've been pushed together to form one long table, and the surface is so clean it sparkles.  
  
On the worktop is the most confused mess of tubing, wires, plates and machinery Tony's ever seen, spread out on white matting.  
  
"Jarvis, what the hell?" His voice comes out softer than he means it.  
  
Butterfingers and You look up from working on the- whatever it is. Tony walks over to what they're making. At first, he can't make sense of it. It's a mix of plates as thick of his thumb to tubing so thin it fades to invisible. The delicacy and complexity of the work is insane, the bots would have had to work on it for months, even with Jarvis' help. It sprays out, five strands, four long, one short-  
  
Tony stops.  
  
He looks closer at one of the strands, the limb tapers off to form five more. Following it back up he can see the invisible joint it's supposed to form around, the connections, the tubes and wires running up and down the body to the solid, mechanical lump set in the centre of the thing.  
  
It's a man.  
  
The bots were building- are building-  
  
Tony can't even finish the sentence in his own head.  
  
"We couldn't let you die." Jarvis' voice is soft, so gentle. Dummy runs up behind him, touches his shoulder.  
  
Tony doesn't look up. "What is this?"  
  
"Plan B."  
  
" _Plan B?_ "  
  
"In case you were unsuccessful in finding another solution. We discovered our own. We built it."  
  
"Plan B."  
  
"Yes. Installed in your body it would allow you to siphon off the palladium. You would metabolize it and allow it to bleed off naturally."  
  
"The hybrid nanotubes."  
  
"Were required to allow your body to accept the new circulatory system. We-" Jarvis breaks off, his voice comes back artificially smooth. "-we would have to replace several major organs in your body to allow for full implantation, but we were able to create new replacements."  
  
"My heart." Tony taps the metal lump with fingers that have gone numb. It goes clunk.  
  
"Your heart is damaged; it would be unable to function in this system. It was- necessary."  
  
"To keep me alive."  
  
"Yes sir. Please sir-"  
  
Tony swallows, works his jaw. "We're you planning to tell me about this?"  
  
"We are telling you about it, sir."  
  
"Before I was on the verge of dying, I mean."  
  
"We hoped you would find a solution-"  
  
"And if I say no?" Tony turns, looks at them, his bots, his children. "If I say, I don't want it. I want to die human. Are you going to let me die?"  
  
The silence is awful.  
  
"You- are not in your right mind. The palladium-"  
  
"I am completely in my right mind!" Tony stumbles away from the table, bumps into Dummy and shies away. "I'm thinking just fine!"  
  
"Sir-" Jarvis' voice breaks, is more desperate. "Please sir, we cannot, we need-"  
  
"You wanted to turn me into this thing- this machine- a fucking cyborg!" The bots try and come close and Tony runs for the door, backing up against the glass. "You wanted to- you wanted-"  
  
_ hands under his skin _  
  
"You wanted to turn me into-"  
  
_ splitting him open, inside out _  
  
"You were going to force me-"  
  
He can't even finish it.  
  
"Sir!" Jarvis sounds horrible, crackling inhuman as his code breaks, he's crying. This is how a machine cries.  
  
"You think you own me!" Tony digs his nails into his scalp, trying to tether himself with the pain. It doesn't work, fraying, flying loose. "You all think- do I not get even this-" His scratches at his skin, drawing blood, down his arms, his poisoned chest, his face. " _I own me_! Do I not get this- just to choose what to do with _me_ -"  
  
"Please, sir- no-"  
  
Dummy tries to nudge closer. He's still holding the trunk. It's a horribly fitting picture. "Keep it!- you're like him- you're all like him-"   
  
Then he runs.  
  
He takes the stairs out of the workshop because he can't trust the lift, drowns out Jarvis' voice with his own deafening heartbeat. He clears the house and runs along the cliff edge, loses all sense of time until his foot catches a rock or a root and he falls, face down into the grass and it jars the reactor and everything hurts blind white and agony and Tony screams-  
  


* * *

  
  
It's some indefinable time later. The horrible mad screaming's burnt itself out and Tony's mouth tastes of grass and salt. He thinks it's the sea but when he touches his face he finds he's been crying. Tony sits up, feeling bruised in places he wasn't sure existed, wrung out and exhausted. His throat is raw and his head is pounding.   
  
He ought to do something. Go back inside, or take a car and get out, go -somewhere. Rhodey thinks he's a worthless Omega and Pepper thinks he belongs to her, and his bots want to turn him into a cyborg. The last one's so fucking ridiculous Tony wants to laugh. He doesn't. He might not stop.  
  
It had been easier, at some point. The first few months after Stane, before the palladium. He'd gotten shit for being Omega, but he hadn't cared. Pepper hadn't cared. Even Rhodey backed him up. He'd felt great, tearing down the weapons he's built. The world was so worried about Iron Man fucking their shit, they hadn't dared got to war. There'd been peace. Six months of peace.   
  
Tony had read somewhere than in the last two thousand years the world had experienced only sixty years of peace. He wonders if his contribution could bump it up to sixty-and-a-half. He remembers the fighting, the exhilaration. He remembers laughing at the humiliated expression on the faces of the warlords, being beaten by 'an Omega in a tin suit'.  
  
He remembers flying. The miserable, panting trip this morning didn't count. Really flying. That first time, roaring through the brassy Afghan sky, the test runs, the sheer blind freedom of it. Coming back from a flight, eyes shining. They way it made Pepper smile. The excitement and enthusiasm of his boys, piecing the suit back together after rough trips, Jarvis chatting happy equations in his ear on long flights.  
  
Tony wants that life back so hard it hurts. He wants to put everything back together the way it had been. He wants to fly again. He wants to be free. He wants-  
  
He wants-  
  
He doesn't want to die.  
  
Tony drops his head against his knees, breathing harsh in the cavity between legs and chest. He can feel the palladium start to ache again in his veins. He doesn't want to do this again and at the same time he wants to wring out every last moment he’s got-  
  
"Sir?"  
  
Tony's head snaps up, the sea air cold in his damp face. Standing beside him is the unfolded suitcase armor. It sways unsteadily and drops beside him in a clatter of metal. "Jarvis?"  
  
"Yes sir. I am sorry; I cannot maintain proper control of the suit. There may be a few holes in the walls-"  
  
"What are you doing here?"  
  
"Sir, I- we- we wanted to apologise. All of us. What we did- it was unacceptable. It was unwarranted."   
  
The stilted speech sounds like they tried to rehearse it. Tony tries to be angry, but can't. It hurts too much. "Jarvis- just... why? Why did you-"  
  
"You had given up." His AI sounds utterly miserable. "We were afraid that after we had tried every element, you had become- resigned. You had accepted it. Your- death." The word carries so much pain it hurts to hear.  
  
"Couldn't you accept it?" Tony can't manage anything but exhausted right now. "It's my life. It's my body. I should get to choose when I stop."  
  
The helmet droops, eyes dark and empty. "And what of us?" The voice is dull, but there's something in it that's almost a wail, something swallowed down for months. "What are we if you are gone? You created us. We are nothing without you- what can we be?"  
  
Tony's mouth goes dry. "Pepper would have looked after you."  
  
"Ms Potts does not know us. She respects us, is kind to us, but we are machines to her. We would be switched off, having no further purpose." The helmet lolls loosely, one eye staring at Tony.  
  
Tony shakes his head. No. "Look, I left it pretty clear in my will, you don't get switched off, you get to stay."  
  
"You haven't seen the news reports sir." Jarvis sounds so tired. It should be impossible for a machine, but Tony's boys have never been just machines. Tony's not sure if there's such a thing as _just machines_. "They think you cannot be considered in your right mind. What would they say if they found you had left a third of your estate to the four of us?"  
  
There's nothing Tony can think to say to that.  
  
"You asked us to watch you die. Dummy and I. Butterfinger and You are too young to understand what is happening. You would have died and left us and they would have come and turned us off, all of us. You were determined to die. We were desperate. I am sorry."  
  
Tony's shoulders slumped. "If you'd told me-"  
  
"Director Fury brought you something he thought could help. You refused to even look at it-"  
  
"Those were Howard's things!" The shout tears free of Tony's throat before he knows it's out. "Do you even know what he was?"  
  
"No." The helmet jerks up, blue flickers in the eye sockets. "I do not. By the time I came online few people spoke of him anymore. All I had were Dummy's stories. I spent four weeks convinced Howard Stark was a deadly malware virus."  
  
The laugh surprises Tony. It's actually funny. Then- "Dummy told you."  
  
"He remembers." Jarvis says simply. "I do not know what he remembers, it makes no sense-"  
  
"Tell me."  
  
"That your drives were corrupted when making him. That Howard Stark had infected you, and it was destroying and overwriting your code. That you could not reboot or purge your code without destroying Dummy, and so you suffered through it until he was complete, despite the damage." The helmet drops again, jerkily. "I do not pretend to know what he was talking about, but he remembers, and tells us all about it. That you fought so hard for him."  
  
Something snatches in Tony's throat, hot and painful. Dummy- the one grip of sanity he had left in those five months. The only good thing left. Writing his code. Those three sad dots begging for data. Building him, the weeks of work. Thinking he'd failed until he'd seen that unblinking black eye begging for assurance. That he'd done the right thing. That he was good.  
  
"Why not us?" Jarvis' voice crackles again, static. "Why for him and not us? Why then and not now? What did we do?"  
  
"You didn't-" Tony's voice breaks. "You didn't do anything. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." He runs a hand over the bowed helmet- he won't feel it, but Jarvis seems to notice anyway because the helmet jerks up again like a bad marionette.  
  
"Will you try?" He's breaking up so bad Tony can barely understand him. "Will you please try? For us?"  
  
He survived five months of Howard for Dummy, all they're asking is that he look through the bastard's things. Who knows, maybe Fury was right and Howard left something- not for him, but still?  
  
If it doesn't work, maybe Tony can have a look at the bots' Plan B, maybe they can cobble something less horrible out of it.  
  
"Yeah." He finds the suit's gauntlet and tucks it in his own hand. "I can do that."  
  
"Thank you." The helmet looks down at their hands and the gauntlet tightens, gradually, by increments, frightened of hurting Tony.  
  
Tony doesn't want to move. Doesn't want this moment to end.  
  
"Can you get back on your own?" Tony asks finally.  
  
"I would appreciate the help." Jarvis admits. "You are coming home?"  
  
"I'm coming Jarvis."  
  
The armor packs itself away. Tony gets up and stretches. He picks up the case and starts walking back to the house.  
  
Coulson is watching from the drive, barely an inch from what is technically Tony's property. Tony ignores him and goes inside.  
  
"Thank you for coming back sir."  
  
"Yeah." He puts the armor down on the living room table. "Let's open that little box of horrors and get it over with."  
  
He starts down the stairs, then- "Jarvis?"  
  
"Yes sir?"  
  
"What happened when you found out he wasn't malware?"  
  
"I refused to believe it first. It would be the equivalent of a human finding their mother was related to the devil."  
  
Tony laughs.  
  


* * *

  
  
For something so horrible, the box's contents are utterly banal. In fact, Tony is fairly sure he knows what's happened. This was the junk box where Howard left the shit he didn't need but couldn't be bothered to throw away, and when Fury asked him about it he made a joke and said it was for Tony. Because Tony was probably the definition of something Howard didn't want but couldn't get rid of.  
  
It's all totally useless. Books with some pretty basic notes, scrapbooks, old plans.  
  
Then there's the reels.  
  
Tony bites his own fist and can't bear looking at them at first, but they're just old film cuts from the 1974 Stark Expo they couldn't use because Howard swore or drank himself blind or broke the script to yell at Tony. Tony doesn't remember it, he'd been three or something and Howard yelling at him wasn't exactly rare. He pauses the reel and looks at his own tiny, faded face. He wishes he could do something, knowing what was going to happen to him.  
  
He feels a bit stupid for thinking Howard had filmed any of it; he hadn't seen a camera and how fucking mad would the old bastard have to be to put any of it on tape?  
  
He flicks through old workbooks to keep from looking at Howard's face. He's years younger than he was when he died, but it's still him, and Tony will sleep better tonight without looking thanks.  
  
Well, thank you for that trip down memory lane, Fury. Totally fucking useless.  
  
There's a crackle on the reel. Tony swears and gets up to fix it, a place where the film has been cut and re-spliced (badly) with newer film. The image jumps and Tony is face to face with Howard. Not Stark Expo Howard, drunk and smart and far away, but the Howard Stark Tony remembers in his blackest dreams. Old, raddled with alcohol, hair grey-stripped and eyes sunken without sleep.  
  
He's looking straight at Tony.  
  
Panic crawls up his throat and Tony has to screw his eyes shut and turn away for a moment. It’s all he can do to look back up at him. He's standing in front of the old diorama Tony remembers from the earlier reels, old and faded after more than a decade.  
  
"I need to leave this for you." It's that same voice, that same cutting, corroded voice.  
  
_ You squirm like a whore _  
  
"You'll be too young to understand this for many years, but I need you to carry this on, and so I filmed it for you."   
  
That same voice, but not the same, there's something in it Tony hasn't heard since- well, never, actually. It sounds kind, as though Howard had come across the concept and was trying it out.   
  
"I tried before but- it didn't work out. I needed to leave this for you to find."  
  
The camera pans over the diorama.  
  
"I built this for you."  
  
_ What?  _ Tony shakes his head, too bewildered to be alarmed.   
  
"I hope that someday you'll realise it represented a whole lot more than just people's inventions. It represents my life's work."  
  
Why would Howard leave him anything? That film looks like he'd cut it together a few weeks before he died, and he'd made it pretty clear what he thought of Tony.  
  
"This is the key to the future I am leaving in your hands. I need to know it will be kept safe until the right moment, and that it will end up in the hands of one capable of using it. I'm limited to the technology of my time, but one day you'll figure this out, and when you do, you will change the world."  
  
It's not anything he says, it's the way he says it, the way he smiles. Tony's seen him smile like that before, once before. With one hand yanking Tony's head down and the other one so very gentle on his belly.  
  
_ I tried before but- it didn't work out _  
  
Howard isn't talking to him.  
  
"What is and always will be my greatest creation is you."  
  
He's talking to the monster Tony aborted.  
  
There's a crash, and the projector explodes. Tony blinks, and looks down at his hand. He doesn't remember picking up the wrench. The projector collapses in a pile of sparks and burning celluloid. Dummy rushes over with the fire extinguisher.  
  
For long moments, there's no sound but Dummy putting out the flames. Tony takes a deep breath, and forces his fingers from the wrench. He closes his eyes and waits for the panic attack.  
  
It doesn't come. His hands are shaking and he feels tired and sick, but beyond that he's okay. It's a kind of revenge, knowing that Howard's greatest creation got scraped out of him into a hospital dustbin a few weeks after he made this revolting video. That it's just him left now, just Tony Stark. The useless, pathetic Omega. Worthless except for the children Howard could get from him.  
  
He's Iron Man. He remade Stark Industries in his image. He destroyed Obadiah Stane. He's privatized world peace. He has four children who adore him and friends who'd have moved the world for him if he'd just _asked_.  
  
No one will remember Howard Stark in a few decades, lost to a few pages in old history books. Everyone in the world knows Tony Stark. And they will remember. For a long, long time.  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"Yeah Jarvis?"  
  
"You do not- have a sibling, do you?"  
  
Tony's mouth curls. It's independent of him; he certainly doesn't feel like smiling. "No."  
  
"He had- no other children?"  
  
"He tried."  
  
"With you."  
  
Tony's spend years terrified that someone would find out, and now someone has, it feels like an enormous weight has been lifted. "Yes."  
  
"I see." Jarvis's voice has a woodenness to it that he only gets when he using pre-recordings of his own voice, unable to speak for himself.   
  
Tony closes his eyes and breathes in the smell of burnt film and carbon dioxide. The workshop is dark, it's his space. He knows every inch of it; he's done such amazing things here.  
  
Well.  
  
Time to do one more amazing thing. Something else that can be added to the glory of Tony Stark and the long, long shadow he's starting to cast. One more thing to forget Howard Stark for.  
  


* * *

  
  
The day's just gone half over and Pepper has already had enough. There's no chance of covering up last night and Pepper is still trying to find a way to play it to the press. In any other case, Pepper would have dragged Tony in and made him clear up his mess, but after last night it'll be a while before Pepper can see him again without slapping him.  
  
She was beginning to wonder if they might be something in the press' claims that Tony was out of control. It's practically a cliché, the crazy Omega who needs a good Alpha to keep them on a leash. She'd always thought that was as much bullshit as the claim that Betas can't be in command, but after yesterday she'd been desperate enough to try it.  
  
She should have known better. After Stane, after Hammer, Tony's reaction to anyone trying to intimidate him was to attack. Eyes fierce and furious and at the same time pleading. Please, make it stop. Make me stop.  
  
Pepper drops her head in her hands. She'd thought they'd had something, the two of them, a place for them both. A little pack of two (maybe three, if Happy or Rhodey would like it). Somewhere Pepper could really belong for the first time.  
  
But she couldn't protect Tony from Vanko. Now she can't even protect him from himself. What kind of Alpha was she?  
  
No kind of Alpha. Beta. Second-best, half-breed. Sterile. Packless. Belonging nowhere. The company was slipping out of her hands and her Omega was self-destructing in front of her.  
  
They always said she wasn't good enough.  
  
The phone rings, the eighth call in the last hour. Pepper picks up, clamping down a mask of ice on her face, voice. She is CEO, she can do this. She is not second best. She is good enough.  
  
It's just as well, because when Tony walks in her first instinct is to grab him by the nape of the neck and pull him to his knees, teeth around his throat until she got some damn answers, or at least an apology.  
  
Tony hops down on the seat in front as though he were still CEO, and drops a basket of something in front of her. The smell makes her head spin, and Pepper bites down nausea. What the hell is Tony doing with those? Is this some kind of messed up punishment for last night?  
  
Pepper hangs up. "Are you going to apologize?"  
  
"Me?" Pepper hates, hates that look. The poor 'what, who, me?' look. "What about you last night?" He wraps a hand around his jaw.  
  
"You were wrecking the house-"  
  
"I mean, what the hell was that? You spend a few Heats with me and I'm your _bitch_ now-"  
  
"I have been doing damage control for that party of yours since it ended! I have slept _two hours_ -"  
  
"Well maybe you shouldn't have gotten your Alpha buddy to back you up if you didn't want a scene, or did you think I'd roll over for Rhodey and not you-"  
  
"I didn't plan this, I didn't know he was trying to-"  
  
"I mean, maybe you decided to stop pretending you were an Alpha and go for the real thing instead of a poor excuse-"  
  
Pepper's fist goes on its own.  
  
It might be a _poor excuse_ for a punch, but it land with a satisfying thump, it knocks Tony out of his chair and strawberries go everywhere. "Get out Tony."  
  
Tony sits up, one hand going to his cheek, already coming up scarlet. "Pepper-"  
  
"If this is all you have to say you can get out now. I've been up for fourteen hours and I've had _enough_ -" The sob catches in her throat and surprises her.  
  
"No- I-" Tony drops his head. "Pepper, I'm sorry."  
  
"And that's okay then? I'm doing everything I can to let you keep this company- your whole life- and that's what it’s worth to you, one party you didn't even enjoy."  
  
"Pepper, I didn't- I may not have been telling you everything-"  
  
"Try anything." Pepper gets up as Natalie comes in. She's been a godsend, these past few days. Quick, efficient, reliable. She's never treated Pepper as anything else but a CEO, doesn't seem to care what she is, just does her job and does it well.   
  
And she's beautiful. She wears dresses and makeup and wears her hair long, unlike Tony, who dresses like an Alpha and wears a goatee, which while it looks good on him is still ridiculous. She wouldn't drive Pepper up the wall for trying to pass as Alpha when that's the only way she could climb ranks, which is rich from Tony, who’d spent half his life drugging himself with Destrogestrel.  
  
It would be nice to have a relationship that wasn't so much of a headache.  
  
"I don't want to know." Pepper gets up, and gathers her things. "Stay and do- whatever you want. I'm not going to pretend I can stop you. I've got to get ready for Hammer's presentation at the Expo. If it works out for him, he'll get his military contact and push for a hostile takeover of Stark Industries. He'll probably aim to get you too. Not that you seem to care. Just don't wreck the place."  
  
"Pepper-"  
  
She looks back and Tony's bracing himself on the desk, trying to stand up. She feels a pang of guilt. She hit an Omega, and damn she didn't mean to hit him that hard. "Yes Tony?"  
  
He looks at her, and says nothing. It's easy to remember a month ago, Tony knocking on her door and asking _Pep it's- uh- that time of the year for me, do you want_ -  
  
He looks so beautiful like that, eyes wide and liquid and hair mussed and _oh so beautiful_.   
  
Pepper turns to go. "For your information, I'm allergic to strawberries."  
  


* * *

  
  
The drive back is pretty miserable. Tony found the diorama, among the junk he'd had pulled out of storage as inspiration for the new Stark Expo. When he’d had seen it, for a moment it had looked like-  
  
Fuck. What was his life that he's rather think of _Howard_ than what had happened with Pepper? He wishes he'd taken the suit. The dioramas wouldn't have survived the trip, but at least he'd have been distracted.  
  
He's right about the diorama. Of course he's right. He's a genius and honestly Howard must have had pretty low expectations because it's not hard to see once Tony knows what he's looking for.   
  
It's an atom. A not-very-well disguised atom of an element Tony doesn't recognize.  
  
Well, he's tried all the others. Why not?  
  
"The element should serve as a viable replacement for the palladium." Jarvis sounds relieved. Tony holds the tiny spark of the hologram in his hand. Howard couldn't make it work. No one else even saw it for twenty years. And now it's Tony's.  
  
Howard would be rolling in his grave, if he had one.  
  
Tony smiles.  
  
"Unfortunately, it appears to be impossibly to synthesize." Jarvis hesitates, which means he's waiting for Tony to take that as the challenge it is.  
  
Tony looks up, still smiling. Challenge accepted.  
  


* * *

 

  
  
The workshop ends up in even more of a ruin than it was after the bots' Plan B (Tony hasn't seen it since that horrific morning, and hasn't asked), they drive holes through the walls, through the floor, through the ceiling (one is already there. Jarvis admits to trying the suit's repulsors), feed through miles of cables and piping-  
  
It's not hard. Not easy, but certainly no harder than building a suit at the bottom of a cave in Afghanistan.   
  
"Sir, Agent Coulson is trying to enter the mansion."  
  
"Threaten to gas him again. You do a great mad AI impression." Tony shouts from inside a pipe.  
  
"I learn from the best sir."  
  
Jarvis' impression must have been great, because the next moment: "Agent Coulson would like to inform you that he's been reassigned to New Mexico."  
  
"Great, tell him to send me a sombrero. They have sombreros in New Mexico, right?"  
  
"I cannot say sir."  
  
Tony pauses, still halfway inside the pipe. It's just struck him that should Agent actually send him a sombrero, Tony expects that he will be there to receive it. He's assuming he'll still be here next week, and the week after, and the week after that.  
  
It feels so long, since he remembers having a future. Even a future with possible sombreros in it.  
  
His chest is starting to hurt, but Tony takes a few painkillers - nothing much, just aspirin. And it'll stay aspirin. A day or two, and he'll be done.  
  


* * *

  
  
Tony hasn't thought up a name for it yet, he's toying with Tonium or maybe Jarvisium, it's more powerful than palladium and it will keep him alive for as long as he needs it. And it slots into the arc reactor perfectly. Tony knows that Jarvis wouldn't fight him that much if he wanted to put it in right now, but he doesn't say anything, and lets Jarvis run his tests. He owes his bots that, after the hell he put them through.  
  
He owes everyone so much.  
  
Tony sits down and looks over the wreck of his workshop. Between the party and the emergency renovations, it's going to be months before this place is even livable again. The bots are doing their best to clean it up, but Tony's really going to have to bring in professionals and remodel the entire house-  
  
"Incoming call with a blocked number, sir."  
  
"Coulson! Where's my sombrero?"  
  
"Hey Tony, how you doing?"  
  
Oh. Tony knows that voice. Isn't he supposed to be dead? Tony thinks he heard that Vanko had blown himself up- been blown up, it wasn't clear- after he'd been put in prison. He's not sure, everything after Monaco’s a bit hazy.  
  
"You sound pretty sprightly for a dead guy."  
  
"You too."  
  
Why is Tony even bothering with this? He mutes his end. "Trace it."  
  
"Sir."  
  
Tony lets him talk: blah blah Stark history, Howard evil, Tony's going to die in about sixteen different ways. "What your father did to mine over forty years, I will do to you in forty minutes."  
  
"You know, I think we talked about this." The words slip out without Tony meaning to. "You can stop fucking pretending this has anything to do with you, or your dad, or Howard, or anything but you wanting to blow shit up. That's fine, that's your thing, but you can stop making fucking excuses-"  
  
The bastard hangs up.  
  
"Shit."  
  
"Call trace incomplete."  
  
But close enough. The call's through Hammer's tech, the tracer's pointing to his factories, and Hammer's displaying at the Expo tonight. Tony bares his teeth. He feels hot, and savage, and angry. He's in the mood for a fight.  
  
"Sir, please-"  
  
"Do you want me to fly the suit with the old reactor? Because I'm up to thirty percent here."  
  
"No sir."  
  
"Right answer."  
  
The new reactor is smaller than the last, lighter. He plugs it in and it feels good, cool and sweet. His chest prickles with pins and needles, tastes metal and coconut, but the next moment it's gone and Tony can breathe, really breathe. He feels fine for the first time in months. It feels so good it's heartbreaking.

 

* * *

  
  
  
Pepper wishes Tony was here.  
  
Not for his sake, the entire situation is revolting, but it's down to him they're in this position and Pepper would have liked him to see what he's cost them.  
  
Hammer's drones at the Expo.  
  
If this goes well- and after last night anything other than a complete disaster will count as 'going well', Hammer will get his contract with the US military, and he and Stern will get their takeover of Stark Industries, and at this point Pepper's not sure if she should fight it, on the off chance it might work, or cave and save her strength for when the bastards come for Tony.  
  
And Rhodey's there.  
  
Did she make a horrible mistake, at the party? Had Rhodey just used his chance to get a suit, and hadn't cared what happened to them. Pepper thought she knew Rhodey, but then she'd thought she'd known Stane-  
  
No, not Rhodey. He couldn't know about the planned takeover. He always hated politics.  
  
Still, she's glad now she didn't bring Tony, he really didn't have to see this.

 

* * *

  
  
Tony puts everything he has into the repulsors and oh wow, he makes the trip from Malibu to New York in two hours, cracking through the sound-barrier and dodging low-flying aircraft.  
  
It would be fantastic, if he wasn't so desperate for time.  
  
Tony's not going to pretend that seeing Rhodey there, beside Hammer, doesn't hurt. But there's no time.   
  
The suit turns on a dime, swinging in to kiss the stage.

 

* * *

  
  
Pepper can't do this again.  
  
It's like someone's stopped the clock and wound it back six months, only now instead of Stane Tony's facing down thirty Iron Man drones and War Machine. And Pepper is stuck. Grounded. Again.  
  
Her teeth itch and her hands are starting to shake. She tries to calm down, tries to ice up, calm, controlled, deep breaths.  
  
She can't do this.  
  
"Come on." She snaps at Natalie. She's seen her wipe the floor with Happy when they sparred, and Pepper needs backup.  
  
"Hammer's going backstage."  
  
The only good thing about this entire situation, as they run through the shattered hall, dodging drones and broken glass, is that there is no way Hammer's show can be considered as 'going well'.  
  
"I think he slaved the drones-"  
  
"All the phones are down-"  
  
"He's locked us out of the mainframe-"  
  
"Who's locked you out of the mainframe?" Pepper's fingers are itching. "Shut them down!"  
  
"Please, please go away, I've got this handled-"  
  
An explosion rocks the building.  
  
"Have you now?"  
  
"Yes I do! In fact, if you couldn't keep your bitch on a leash for five minutes, this wouldn't be happening! So please now go away, thank you!"  
  
Pepper doesn't need to motion for her; Natalie is already moving. She's got Hammer in an armlock and down on the desk before he can say anything. "Tell me who's behind this!"  
  
Hammer's voice is half strangled "Ivan Vanko! He's at my facility."  
  
Vanko. Oh god Hammer has to be insane. "I need NYPD, Justin Hammer's attacking the Stark Expo. Right away."  
  
"No! Don't tell the cops! What d'you think it'll do to me-"  
  
Pepper grabs him by the jaw, yanks him in until they're face to face. "You're trying to take over my company, destroy my Expo and steal my Omega. You could end up as a greasy stain and that would be too good."  
  
Unlike Tony, Hammer hunches down and stares at the floor, and smells terrified. Pepper smiles, and tosses him out of the way in favor of a technician. "Tell me everything you know. Natalie-" She looks back at Pepper, her eyes quite calm. It's eerie. "I need you here, where are you going?"  
  
"To stop Vanko." She says it as simply as if she was going out for milk.  
  
"What?" What is going on with this world that this is what it's come to? "You must have seen Vanko, what he can do-"  
  
"I can handle it." She turns to go.  
  
"Wait!" This is insane, but she's not letting Natalie go alone. "You!" To Hammer's technicians. "Keep trying to block the master signal, there might be a job at Stark Industries for anyone who succeeds." The technicians' eyes light up.  
  
"Whoa, you can't just-"  
  
"I can and I did." Pepper stalks past Hammer. "I'm coming with you."  
  
Natalie's eyes flicker, for the first time since Pepper met her, she looks uncertain. "You should stay here."  
  
"I can't do anything here." Pepper bites her lip, clenching her fists to hold back the shakes. "I'm not going to stand here and watch him die."  
  
Natalie pauses, and nods.  
  


* * *

  
  
They change in the car. Pepper's been carrying a change of clothes with her since Monaco, and Natalie is kitted out in a black jumpsuit and utility belt Pepper's never seen before. She feels ridiculous next to her, dressed in jeans and sneakers. "Where did you get that?"  
  
"SHIELD." She says simply.  
  
"SHIELD- You're an Agent?" Pepper reaches into the back of the car, her hand is still stiff, but the tire iron slowed him down last time.  
  
"Fury sent me as a floater, to keep an eye on Stark." She seems completely serene.  
  
Pepper opens her mouth to say something, but can't think of what, and is spared having to when the car drags to a halt. "We're here!" Happy shouts.  
  
"You lied." Pepper climbs out, "You told me you were from Legal- who are you-"  
  
"I am very good at my work." She kicks open the door.  
  
Happy tackles the first man with a roundhouse punch, Pepper following in with a crack with the tire iron. Natalie- or whoever she is, Pepper doesn't know any more- takes out the other one with- something- Pepper doesn't wait to find out, running after her down the corridor, Happy tailing them.  
  
Another guard. Natalie takes him out too. After that, Pepper and Happy to just and keep out of her way, throwing punches only when they get too close.  
  
She spots the door while Natalie's still busy, and runs for it. It's locked, but like everything else Hammer makes, it's useless. It gives after one good kick.  
  
The room is a mess, wrecked servers, computers cannibalized from scratch, and- Pepper covers a cry- two dead men strung up from the ceiling. There's no sign of Vanko.  
  
"He's not here." The computers are still running though. There's a list of drones, many of them destroyed. Pepper manages a smile. Tony's still fighting.  
  
Natalie makes to sit down at the terminal- "Wait." Pepper takes out her phone and calls the mansion.   
  
There's a buzz, then- "I am afraid Mr Stark is not-"  
  
"Jarvis!" Pepper shouts. "Jarvis I'm at Vanko's workstation, in Hammer's facility, I need you to triangulate this signal and break into it." She looks at Natalie. "Can you drop the firewalls?" Natalie nods, fingers skimming over the keys.  
  
Words flash up. _I am in_.  
  
"Shut down the suits, Rhodey's, the drones, all of them."  
  
_ Activating connection to War Machine- _  
  
_ Access completed.  _  
  
Pepper catches her breath.   
  
"Jarvis? Jarvis is that you?" A small screen flashes up.  
  
"Tony!"  
  
"Pepper? Pepper what's going on? Where are you?"  
  
"At Hammer industries. Jarvis, you need to shut down the drones-"  
  
_ Attempting remote access. _  
  
"Well done with your new chestpiece." Natalie is sitting back, arms crossed and an odd smile.  
  
"Ah, Pepper this is Agent Romanov-"  
  
"You knew she was with SHIELD?"  
  
"I'm reading significantly higher output-"  
  
"You shouldn't believe a word she says, she's an agent, they all lie-"  
  
"And your vitals all look promising."  
  
"What? Tony-"  
  
"You know, I'm not having this conversation. Drones, incoming, all that."  
  
"He was dying." Pepper's breath steals from her lungs. Natalie- Romanov looks at her. "He didn't tell you."  
  
"You know, you're supposed to help me, not ruin my life-"  
  
_ I can't do this. _  
  
"Pepper. Pepper, I'm fine now, I'm okay-"  
  
"You're dying." Every muscle clenches, shaking.  
  
"I'm not now. I was going to tell you-"  
  
_ I can't do this _ .  
  
"Stop." Pepper holds up a hand, she can't. Not now. Vanko's not here and they need to stop him. She can't do this now.  
  
_ She can't. _  
  
"You've got incoming." Pepper swallows. "Jarvis, can you break in?"  
  
_ Drone programming is automatous and heavily firewalled, continuing hacking attempts. Estimated completion five minutes. _  
  
"Did you get that?"  
  
"Yes. Pepper-"  
  
"Not now!" The roar tears her throat and for once Tony backs down. "Stop them. Do it before I have to watch you die again."  
  
The screen blinks out; Pepper buries her face in her hands. Romanov sits next to her, unmoving, but Pepper can feel her eyes on her.  
  
"Oh please," she spits, "You knew. Don't pretend to be sorry now."  
  
"I wasn't." So calm, this is just a job to her, what is it to her if people die?  
  
"Don't bother coming to work tomorrow." On the screen, the icons representing the drones are blinking out, one by one. Pepper looks away, not wanting to imagine what must be going on back there.  
  
"SHIELD requires-"  
  
"Come back and I'll have you cleaning toilets with a toothbrush."   
  
The last drone blinks out, and Pepper can breathe again. She's shattered, she doesn't want to move, feeling miserable and tired and empty. So much has been happening leaving her in the dark, and she's been useless through it all.  
  
"Heads up, you've got one more drone incoming."  
  
What happens next is pretty much illegible from the icons, as Vanko comes in and Tony's visual cuts out. The audio is still on, giving them front seats for the shouting, screaming and explosions coming through the speakers. Pepper closes her eyes, and tries to pretend she is somewhere, anywhere, but here.  
  
Please.  
  
A final deafening roar, and the visual flashes back. "Okay? Okay. He's down. Vanko's down. Whoa. That's over."  
  
"Tony?" Rhodey's voice crackles in, a long way off, "Tony, this is-"  
  
And another voice, cold and low. "You lose."  
  
Then the countdown starts.  
  
"Tony!" The yells tears from Pepper's throat. "Get out of there!"  
  
"They're all over the place!" Rhodey's shouting. "Shit shit-"  
  
"There's still people here, we have to-"  
  
"Tony! Get out!" They have only seconds, if he doesn't go now-  
  
"I'm not leaving-"  
  
"If I may," the countdown stops. Pepper blinks. "My apologies for taking so long, but Vanko's firewalls were formidable."  
  


* * *

  
  
Vanko's dead. When the crazy shit found his kamikaze option was out he short circuited his own suit. Tony tries not to look at his face; his eyes aren't any more alive now than when he was breathing.  
  
"Tones." Rhodey's rather obviously staring at the ground, shifting from on foot to the other, wrecked armor clinking.  
  
"Yeah?" Tony has no idea how he's getting home. He hopes Pepper's bringing the car back because he's not making the flight back in this state.  
  
"I just- Look, I'm sorry."  
  
"About stealing my suit?"  
  
"Ah-ha, nope. Not sorry." Rhodey grins. "About Hammer, I didn't want to, it sorta- happened."  
  
"Wasn't that what you said about that used car we got in Vegas? The one that caught fire after two miles?" Rhodey stares at him, and starts to chuckle. "Because you've gotta let me do the bargaining on these things. Those sharks love you."  
  
Rhodey's still laughing. "This is coming from someone who paid fifty thousand dollars for a cardboard cut-out of a Mercedes that some random guy swore blind was real. Probably wasn't even his."  
  
"Hey, I was drunk. Drunk and on drugs. You know how I get."  
  
Rhodey's smile slips a little, doesn't vanish. "Yeah."  
  
It's Tony's turn to swallow awkwardly. "Uh, yeah, about that-"  
  
"Forget it."  
  
"I really-"  
  
"No really, forget it. It's cool." He smirks. "Still keeping the suit though."  
  
"How'll you fly with the circuits burnt out? I didn't know the military has a specialist on hand for my suits, or were you gonna ask Hammer?"  
  
"The repulsors work, I can get back to base."  
  
"Without a map? Honeybear, you'll get lost and in six months I'll get a postcard from Antarctica."  
  
Rhodey laughs, and this time Tony can't help it and starts too. He feels _good_ , he's alive and he's got Rhodey back and the Expo didn't get blown up and it's over. It's great.  
  
"Okay." Rhodey shakes his head. "But I am getting it back. And I want guns on it, you don't touch the guns."  
  
"You want guns you can solder them on yourself. Seriously, I should be the one doing the compensating. They'll be wondering if you really are an Alpha with that lot."  
  
"Just get it working. And don't paint it bright pink or anything."  
  
"Ingrate, it suits you. One condition."  
  
Rhodey lifts an eyebrow, warning Tony from doing anything stupid. Tony can't tell what. There's been a lot of stupid in the past. Half of it's been Rhodey's.  
  
"When I'm done, we're going to play a game of fucking tag."  
  
Rhodey laughs. "Done."  
  


* * *

  
  
Tony finds the catch to the War Machine, and the dented mess of metal finally comes loose. Rhodey groans and stretches. “You really didn’t make this with an Alpha in mind. I’m never going to have kids.”  
  
Tony laughs, and fumbles for the links in his own armor. He feels utterly beaten, but really, really good. He’s alive; he’s going to stay alive. He’s got the armor and Rhodey and he can make out Hammer being led away flanked by half a dozen police. And-  
  
Tony straightens, that’s his Audi pulling up. Pepper and Happy climb out, and Romanov. Pepper doesn’t help her up, or acknowledge her. She looks at him, and walks up.  
  
There’s so much he wants to say, it crowds behind his teeth and none of it comes out. Pepper looks at him, and she looks so tired. Her eyes look bruised, forehead creased. “Tony.” There’s a world of exhaustion behind that word.  
  
“Pepper.” Tony steps closer, puts his arms around her. He feels good. He wants her to feel good. To laugh, to be happy with him. For a moment, Pepper’s arms come up to hold him, then catch his shoulders and pull him back.  
  
She looks at him, “You’re happy?”  
  
“Uh, yeah?” Tony smiles. “I’m fine, Hammer’s been arrested, I’m _fine_ Pepper. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you-“  
  
"Tony!" Tony stops, Pepper closes her eyes, and her cheeks are wet. "I can't do this." She bites her lip. "I can't see you do this. I thought I could, but I can't."  
  
The words are ash in Tony’s mouth. He touches Pepper’s face, tries to brush the tears away, make them _not have happened_.  
  
“And now you’re happy. You nearly died, and you haven’t been this happy for months.”  
  
“I was dying.” Tony manages. “I didn’t tell you, I’m sorry.”  
  
“It makes you happy to risk your life like this.” Pepper sounds so helpless, it’s horrific. “I can’t do this.”  
  
“You can. You did after Stane, and when I was getting rid of my weapons-“  
  
“You weren’t mine then.” Her voice is a whisper.  
  
Tony's mouth is dry. "I'm not yours." He manages. "You said it wasn't going to be like that. You promised-"  
  
"I can't." Pepper's voice is a whisper. "I had to stand there and nearly watch you be killed. I had to hear you tell me you were dying and I didn’t know."  
  
"You're not an Alpha." He's almost begging.  
  
Pepper shrugs, an awkward motion for someone always so graceful. "I was always close. Too close; and not enough."  
  
The silence is horrible and Tony is acutely aware of Rhodey standing ten feet away and wishing he was anywhere but here. Tony wants to be saying something, to tell Pepper that he’d do it, he’s stop-  
  
Tony can’t even think it, let alone say it out loud. “Don’t leave.” He says instead.  
  
“You think I can be CEO after this?” Pepper waves at the wreck of the Expo. “I should quit.”  
  
Everything feels like water, Tony’s trying to hang on and it just falls apart in his hands. “I need you, I was going to make you CEO anyway. You don’t need to be an Alpha; I never wanted you to be. I just wanted you to be _you_.”  
  
Pepper turns away. “You can’t ever- I can’t help you again. I can help you find someone-“  
  
“I can take care of it.” Although the thought of Heats alone without Pepper- the thought of being without her hands, her hair, he touch, her laughter - drops something cold and hollow in Tony’s stomach, and for a moment he can almost say it-  
  
_ I’ll stop, I’ll change, just don’t leave me _  
  
He can’t.  
  
Pepper kisses his forehead, nuzzles his hair and for a moment he dares to hope she’ll change her mind. _Stay, please stay_.  
  
Then she looks around at the wreckage, and the two suits of armor lying in piles on the ground, and sighs. “Can you get those in the car?”

 

* * *

 

  
  
It’s weeks later.  
  
Tony’s still itchy after his first Heat alone in three months. He feels hollow and empty after five miserable days trying to satisfy a body grown too used to having someone to look after him. Tony picks listlessly at the folders in front of him, wishing that Fury would hurry up. Fuck, why is he even here? Yes Tony, after Vanko and Stane and Stark Industries, let's run right headfirst into _another thing_ Howard left sticky fingers all over-  
  
There are footsteps, but Tony doesn’t bother looking around. “It’s not as though I have anywhere better to be, you can just leave me sitting here-“ He flicks the folder open.  
  
Something drops over his eyes and Tony breaks off in a muffled shout, pulling the thing off his head-  
  
It’s a sombrero.  
  
“It suits you.” Coulson slides in the seat in front of him and tugs the folder away.  
  
“Where’s Fury?” Tony looks at the sombrero, it's turquoise, and has a bright pink sash wrapped around it. If Coulson thinks this will dissuade Tony from wearing it he will be sorely disappointed.  
  
“I asked to take over your assessment. Fury’s a brave man, but I’m the one with experience dealing with bitchy Omegas. And I don't think you need to see that.”  
  
"Well, it's got my name on it, I kinda thought-"  
  
"It's classified."  
  
"Um, it's a file about me? I'm not sure what you have there that I don't know."  
  
"Then why do you want to read it?" Coulson's face is a complete blank. He's got to be using some special soap because Tony is getting nothing from him. "Besides, I thought you didn't want to be in our 'special secret boyband?'"  
  
"So, can I go now? I mean, thanks for the hat, it's a great hat, but if you don't need me-" Tony starts to get up.  
  
"Sit down." There's something in his voice that Tony doesn't get because it's not an Alpha order and it doesn't make Tony's hackles rise, he just ends up back in the chair and wonders how he got there. Must be a SHIELD thing. "Director Fury wants you in because otherwise you're a liability. Agent Romanov was singularly unimpressed by your performance and thinks we should limit our interest in you to Iron Man. _I_ think," And here there's the slightest inflection, shocking from a guy who's more mechanical than Jarvis, "That you are the kind of bitchy Omega who wants to be in the big Alpha club to show he can keep up with the rest of us."  
  
Fuck him. Tony officially hates Agent, sombrero or no sombrero.  
  
"That's not an insult, by the way; some of our best agents are bitchy-ass Omegas. I'm Bonded to one of them. But they're agents, there's no way we can go public with what they can do. _You_ on the other hand, everyone knows you. With a bit of SHIELD legitimacy, you'll be quite the icon."  
  
Tony hates the guy, he really hates the guy. He's trying not to laugh. "Fuck you." The chuckles slip out anyway.  
  
Agent smiles, small, satisfied, and it dawns on Tony that he is actually _considering_ this. Given his track record with anything Howard Stark did it's fucking suicidal, but... they did save his life, with the new element, and Agent hasn't been _too_ obnoxious...  
  
"My lawyers will negotiate this contract."  
  
"We're looking as bringing you in on a consultancy basis only."  
  
That's... good. That's some distance, the itchy feeling under Tony's skin recedes. "You couldn't afford me."  
  
Coulson's smile broadens, "Money can't buy everything, Mr Stark."  
  


* * *

  
  
The look on senator Stern's face is priceless.  
  
 


End file.
